


Fool's Judgment

by Felle



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-25 04:24:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felle/pseuds/Felle
Summary: Sae gets her calling card just as all of her investigative resources are pulled out from under her, and the only person she can call on for comfort is her boyfriend, Akira.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jtav](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jtav/gifts).



The line cut out without warning, leaving only the soft tones her phone made when she ended a call playing in her ear. Sae tried to swallow despite a terribly dry throat. Yanked off of her own case, her resources wisping away like so much smoke, sitting alone in the dark while the wolves closed in around her.

Sae sank down, so slowly that she wasn’t even aware of doing it until she felt the couch underneath her, and stared at her phone in her hand. The family on her wallpaper smiled back, her and her parents and Makoto sitting in her lap, and Sae set it down on the end table harder than she should have. Something tightened in her chest, and her head began to pound. Her hands trembled as she took the calling card from her pocket and smoothed it in her lap. The message on it was hacked together with every writing system she knew, clipped from magazines and newspapers, in line with the other ones she had seen come across her desk in their massing pile of evidence.

Other ones, Sae thought. The previous victims of the Phantom Thieves were abusers and fraudsters—she was a public prosecutor! There was nothing she could be forced to confess to on a scale like those that had their hearts stolen. Her thumbs ran in circles over the card. Almost nothing. But she was in their way, had been touted as their ruin. And now, when she needed to do her job more than ever, her only means to do it had been snatched away.

A coldness settled over the room, and for a moment Sae was unpleasantly aware of everything around her, as if it had all been pulled into dizzying, too-sharp focus. She pinched at the bridge of her nose and tried to ignore the odd purple tinge the shadows around her were taking on, not to mention the disquieting feeling that she wasn’t alone.

“Phantom Thieves, nothing but nonsense,” Sae muttered. The couch cushions compressed under her weight as she fell back into them. Nonsense, she told herself again. Nonsense.

But Okumura hadn’t been nonsense. Someone was dead because of the Phantom Thieves, and gruesomely so. Sae could still see what had made it onto the broadcast when she closed her eyes, and to have one of those same calling cards stuffed into her mailbox, to know they had slipped through the same space she and her sister used every day…she trembled.

There was too much nervous energy coursing through her to sit still much longer. Sae stood and rubbed at her temples, trying and failing to alleviate the pain in her head as she went down the hall and stopped in front of Makoto’s door. Her knuckles rested on the frame, but she didn’t knock. Not yet. Every few seconds there was a chirp from within, a tone from a messenger app if she had to guess. She should have been studying, but Sae could hardly chastise her for being distracted now. Sae rapped on the door and rested her hand on the knob. “Makoto?”

Her sister was lying atop her bedspread, stuffing her phone under her pillow and scrambling to her feet as Sae opened the door. She had gone and changed into her nightclothes already, with a goofy Buchimaru- _kun_ on the middle of her shirt. “Uh, hey, Sis,” she said, fussing with her sleeves. “Are you going back into the office?”

_No_.

“I’m waiting to hear back,” Sae said. She took a few cautious steps into the room. Everything was in its proper place, so much so that it didn’t look like anyone really lived in it. Sae let out a long breath and closed the distance between them a bit more. “You’ll be going to bed soon, then?”

Makoto nodded.

“All right. Just remember to keep up with your studies and your practice exams and…well. You know. No need for me to sound like a broken record.”

“Sis—oh!”

It was more than a little awkward, trying to hug Makoto when she only came up to her collarbone, but Sae didn’t care. Her arms wrapped around Makoto and squeezed hard. Makoto, for her part, responded easily to the rare show of affection, melting into the embrace and gently patting Sae’s back. “It’ll be all right,” Sae said, to herself as much as her sister. “So don’t worry, everything’s in hand.”

“I know.”

Makoto didn’t let go of her for a long moment, and plopped onto her bed when they finally eased back from one another. Sae wasn’t sure what else to say. She could reassure and reassure, but too much was out of her control for comfort. Eventually she settled for patting Makoto’s shoulder and slipping out of her room, pulling the door shut behind her. The shadows at the far end of the hall seemed darker and more solid than any shadows had a right to be. Sae shook her head clear. She wasn’t a child; there wasn’t any reason to be afraid of the dark in her own apartment. Still, she was glad to be back in the well-lit living room.

There was no hope of sleeping, Sae knew that much. She hated to impose, but if there was ever a time for it…she glanced over her shoulder once to make sure Makoto hadn’t followed her out of her room, then snatched up her phone and started typing.

_N. Sae [20:58]: Sorry to text you so late, but are you available tonight, by any chance? My day…hasn’t gone well. I was hoping I could see you._

She stuffed her phone into her pocket and went to the bathroom to get something for her growing headache. Her bottle of aspirin was down to its last pill, and she swallowed it dry as her phone chirped and she hurried to check it.

_K. Akira [21:00]: Of course. We’re just closing up now, I’ll leave the door unlocked for you._

That put a small smile on her face, one that lasted until she looked up and saw _something_ in the mirror. It only lingered for an instant, and it at least resembled her, apart from the yellow eyes and more mascara than she had ever owned at any one time. There was nothing in her closet with a neckline like that, either. Everything was back to normal before she could blink, after which it was only her own shocked face staring back at her.

Sae opened the tap and splashed some cold water on her face. “Pull yourself together, Niijima,” she said under her breath, and wiped away what mascara she did have on. “Now is _not_ the time to crack.”

A more worrying thought occurred to her as she put on her coat and slipped out the front door. They still had no idea how the Phantom Thieves actually did what they did—what if this was it? What if the calling card itself had been laced with something akin to whatever was causing the mental shutdowns? What if it was happening already?

She forced herself to focus as she waited for the elevator. No, that couldn’t be it. The other victims had never physically touched their calling cards, according to the reports she’d pored over. Makoto hadn’t started acting funny either, after handling it even before her. And the Thieves were precise—indiscriminate bioweapons didn’t match anything she knew about the way they went about things.

The remaining option was that she was just cracking under the strain. Sae wasn’t sure which possibility she preferred.

Hiroo didn’t keep the same near-endless hours as Shibuya proper, and most of the storefronts had gone dark for the evening. What open buildings she did pass were all harsh fluorescent lights and cutesy mascots animated with neon bars casting garish shadows she avoided looking at. The people she passed all looked to be commuters from the city center, and their momentary glances burned as she walked to the station. Did they know? Could they tell? Had something changed to make her visibly marked as the next target of the Phantom Thieves?

It was only nerves, she told herself. Half of the city was probably on edge. She was about to buy a can of coffee at the station to calm herself down before remembering where she was going.

_N. Sae [21:17]: Do you think you could brew something decaffeinated?_

_K. Akira [21:18]: I’ll get it going for you._

Sae found herself in the uncomfortable position of being alone with her thoughts once the train left the station and started trundling toward Yongen. It must have looked silly to the handful of people sharing the car with her, having her gaze fixed intently on the bright spot beneath the nearest light to avoid looking at any shadows or reflections, but that was the last thing on her mind now.

There were a handful of questionable prosecutions on her record, but she was hardly the only person working for the city that had put a few toes outside the bounds of their authority to put a criminal away. Being forced to confess to that was hardly going to harm her career enough to derail it. She doubted whether the people of Tokyo would take kindly to their civil servants being attacked.

Of course, she thought as she turned her phone over in her hands, that wasn’t the only thing that would outline any confession she could be compelled to make. Sae knew it had been a bad idea to let that boy pursue her, she had known it, and she still let things progress when she should have slammed the gate on him. And now she was on her way into his arms. A sixteen year-old and a delinquent with a record at that, a year younger than her own sister…oh, what would Makoto think if she knew, Sae wondered. Well. If it was going to come out no matter what she did, she could indulge one more night, couldn’t she?

There was a light out on the Yongen platform when Sae stepped off the train, leaving a swath of the floor around the work crew replacing it bathed in darkness. As silly as she knew it was, Sae made an effort to avoid it as she went to the stairs.

Unfortunately, the back streets of Yongen weren’t any better. The only thing still open was a convenience store on the next block, and otherwise there were only a handful of streetlights creating small oases of brightness against an expanse of shadow that stretched out of sight. Sae pulled her coat tighter around herself and hurried to the first right turn she could make, where the little light over the door into Leblanc was still on despite the CLOSED sign hanging in one of the panes. Sae stepped over Akira’s cat as he bolted out when she opened the door and slipped inside to the sound of soft jazz and the oddly complementary scents of coffee and curry.

Akira was doing an English crossword puzzle at the counter, but abandoned it immediately to come up to her and take her coat. He had laid out a small meal for her at the middle booth, and Sae let him guide her over. “I hope you didn’t go to any trouble for this,” she said as he settled in across from her.

“I got in late today, this is half of what Sojiro left for me.”

“You’re that familiar with your guardian, huh…”

The curry was delicious, as it always was when Akira made a plate for her, but Sae found that she didn’t have much of an appetite. Instead she sipped at the coffee, letting the warmth suffuse through her chest while Akira offered his hand. Sae threaded their fingers together and felt the knot of tension in her stomach ease a bit. “Don’t worry, I didn’t only come over here to eat your food.”

“You’re welcome to, you know I’m always happy to put something together for you,” he said, circling her thumb with his. Sae smiled weakly. She didn’t know if it was fair, putting something like this on him. He had his whole life to look forward to as long as he finished his probation without incident; dragging him down with her really wasn’t right. Akira cocked his head. “Something’s on your mind.”

“Yes.”

“Is it…something you want to share?” Akira asked, gently nudging her along.

Sae hated every little motion of reaching into her pocket, of grasping the crumpled calling card and placing it on the table. Akira’s reaction was very muted, which sent a stab through her heart. Was there something about her he could see that she couldn’t? Was this simply not a surprise to him? His lips parted slightly as he pulled the card closer, a glare on his glasses keeping Sae from watching his eyes track along the message, over the chaotic mash of kanji, katakana and hiragana.

“My sister found that in our mailbox when she came home today,” Sae said, trying to keep her voice even. “I guess I poked the hornet’s nest, didn’t I?”

Akira was silent as he turned the card over in his hands, studying it from every angle. Sae folded her hands in her lap. “Say _something_ , please…”

“This has to be a mistake.” Akira slid the card halfway across the table, not quite back to her but to the midpoint between them. “That’s all. Or a prank, a copycat. You’re not—you’re not like any of them.”

He reached across the table again, but she didn’t take his hand. “It’s quite a mistake, don’t you think? This looks exactly like the cards we recovered in our investigation, and it was dropped into my mailbox. It’s not comforting to think that someone who would make a joke out of this knows where I live. Not very funny either, especially after what happened to Okumura.”

That made him blanche. “Can we go upstairs?” she asked. “I’m not much for dinner tonight, sorry.”

Akira cleared the curry away while Sae tucked the card back into her jacket pocket. The thought struck her to tear it up, if only to make herself feel better, but…that wasn’t wise. She would need all the evidence she could get her hands on to lock the Phantom Thieves into the smallest, darkest cell she could find. At least then she could relax and enjoy her boyfriend’s company without looking over her shoulder all the time. “Is that the _Sayuri_?” Sae asked as her gaze wandered around the room. Akira turned casually toward the front door. “Is it one of the fakes, or…no. The bottom third is different. I have six fakes in my office, I’m sure that’s not like them.”

“One of my friends at Kosei, his mother painted it,” Akira said as he dried off the plate he had cleared. “It was a donation.”

She nodded and shuffled out of the booth while Akira finished up. Once he had tossed his apron aside, he took her offered hand and led her up to his room, or the space he was using as a room. It looked more lived-in than the first few times she had seen it, with the shelves decorated with trinkets and some posters on the wall. It looked like one had fallen down, to judge from the blank space above his couch, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. His cat’s bed was perched on a table near the stairs beside his backpack, and it was obvious that he had tidied up. Akira busied himself with fixing something on his shelves to let her pick somewhere to sit, and Sae drifted over to his desk. “You ought to do a better job of hiding these,” she said, and took one of his lock picks out of the padlock he had been testing it with. “They’re illegal if you don’t have a locksmith’s license.”

Akira put his hands up in false conciliation. “Me and my dumb hobbies.”

“Why do you even have these?” Sae sank down to the couch, intent on focusing on something other than her current predicament. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of hobby you could get into in Japan.”

“I’m afraid my sordid criminal origins aren’t very interesting,” Akira said as he joined her, keeping a polite distance until Sae eased back into his chest. For as slender as he looked, there was a fair bit of firmness for her to lean into as she picked up the television remote. “My older brother spent a year abroad, and the American girl we hosted in exchange got me into it. Now I just make them for fun.”

“Well, your fun could mean another year in jail, so keep them tucked away.”

Sae found something she liked on the vanishingly small selection of channels Akira’s ancient television got, and settled in against him in determined silence while he played with her hair. No matter how she tried to focus, though, her thoughts kept turning back to the card in her pocket, to whatever she would have to face.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“I guess it wouldn’t help much if I told you everything was going to be all right, would it?”

Sae shifted about in Akira’s protective grasp. “You could try.”

“Then everything’s going to be all right,” Akira said, his soft voice rumbling against her ear as his arms tightened around her shoulders and waist. “The first four people who got calling cards were perfectly fine—”

“Four?”

“Um, three, my mistake. And you’re not anything like them.”

“Then why did I get a calling card?”

She knew he didn’t have a good answer for her, and it wasn’t her goal to harangue him, but she needed something, anything, to set her mind at ease. Akira reached down and kissed the soft spot beneath her ear, sending a shiver through her body. “Have you looked through their site?” he asked. “There are plenty of people there that say they’ve helped them, not just by swooping in like spirits of vengeance.”

“I think I’d be fine without any vigilantism in my life.”

“I know, I know.” Akira tapped her shoulder, and Sae turned around in his arms, letting him hold onto her with that soft, subtle smile of his looking down at her. “Maybe you won’t believe me, but I’m absolutely certain everything’s going to be all right.”

Sae settled in on his chest. “I wish your confidence was contagious.”

He chuckled, and Sae worked one arm free so she could take off his glasses. Akira blinked a few times to reorient himself, giving Sae enough time to shift forward and gently press her lips to his. His whole body started beneath her in surprise, but he responded in kind quickly enough. Sae felt him kiss her back, felt the way his arms tightened around her, protective and possessive, and she parted her lips at the soft flit of his tongue. If her number was up, there was little point in not going for at least this small indulgence. His voice was so sweet and strained, choking out her name when the paused for air before diving into one another again, and she only knew she had to stop when Akira’s hips twitched under her.

It was a very conscious decision, easing back enough to rest her cheek on his collarbone rather than giving in, but it wasn’t any easier for the fact. “I shouldn’t have done that,” Sae said, tracing a slow circle over his shirt. His heartbeat was still coming down from the gallop she had kicked it into, and a vain part of her was pleased at the effect she’d had on him. “I’m going to end up giving you ideas.”

“Seems like you have some ideas of your own, Prosecutor…”

She couldn’t exactly challenge that.

The television was still on, but Sae didn’t feel much like watching anything, or moving at all once they had settled into a comfortable position again. She nuzzled against Akira instead, focusing on the way his fingers ran up and down her back and the steady beat of his heart. At some point Sae heard Akira’s cat padding up the stairs and hopping into his bed. The thought that staying the night would throw her morning routine into disarray faded in her mind when her eyelids started growing heavy. With whatever cogence she still had, Sae stood and shuffled over to the bed, pulling Akira along with her. She didn’t have the energy to even take her jacket off or get under the covers. All she could do was curl up with Akira, holding tight to the point of constancy that was her boyfriend in the tumult the Phantom Thieves had thrown her life into.

Her sleep wasn’t restful. The dreams Sae remembered were plagued by something that should have been her, if not for the disquieting sense of _wrongness_ that its yellow eyes carried as it brandished what looked like her father’s old notebook. Sae woke gripping the bedsheets and grasping for a comforting presence that simply wasn’t there.

She rolled away from the bars of sunlight filtering in through the window and slowly opened her eyes. The momentary panic at waking up in unfamiliar surroundings faded as the previous night started coming back to her. Akira’s room, Leblanc, Yongen. Once she was oriented, Sae let out a short breath and sat up, rubbing some sleep out of her eyes as she sniffed at the scent of grilled fish wafting up the stairs.

The quilt was on her lap, while her jacket had been hung on the chair at Akira’s desk. On the couch was one of the pillows from his bed, along with a set of sheets that hadn’t been there the night before. She sighed. Sometimes it seemed like he was more careful about the bounds of their relationship than her.

Despite the fish obviously being prepared just down the stairs, Akira’s cat was sitting in his bed, watching her with big blue eyes as she picked up the toiletries he had laid out for her on the table. Sae picked up his collar and stumbled over the English on his nametag. “ _Noruga_ , no, Morgana,” she said, and scratched softly between his ears. “You must be pretty bored, sleeping here all day while he’s at school.”

A chorus of _meows_ answered her, and Morgana licked once at her fingers. “Well, at least you’re friendly. Don’t let Akira go and forget about me if I get hauled off to jail, all right?”

A sadder _meow_ , as if he could understand her. “I bet the customers like you—”

Sae snatched her hand back and tried to listen at the stairs. If Sakura was already here for the day, there wouldn’t be any way to explain her presence. She stuffed her hands into her pockets, feeling guiltily at the calling card there, and went down a single step. “Are you up?” Akira asked from below her. “There’s no one else here, I told Sojiro I’d take care of the morning setup so he could sleep in.”

The knot in her stomach loosened, and she was able to walk down to the restaurant without having a heart attack. Once she had washed her face and cleaned herself up, Sae went to the counter, where Akira had put out a plate for her. “I don’t want to rush you, but I only have about twenty minutes before I have to lock up and catch the train,” he said. “I couldn’t bring myself to wake you up earlier.”

Akira kept working while she ate and sipped at the coffee he’d brewed for her. She took the spare moment to check her phone, but there was nothing very important, only Makoto letting her know that she’d left for the day and Akechi pestering her as usual. Her phone disappeared into her pocket again as she looked at Akira. Even knowing that she should have been falling apart, there was something about the calmness with which he went through the morning routine that helped Sae to keep herself under control.

_I’m absolutely certain everything’s going to be all right._

“You have your final exams next month, right?”

“Right before Christmas.”

“Well, keep up with your studies,” Sae said, then mentally lurched at the reminder that her boyfriend was still in high school. Akira nodded and took her empty plate back to the sink while she finished her coffee. “Can I walk you to the station?”

“I’d like that.”

He disappeared up the stairs and returned a few minutes later, his apron exchanged for his school blazer. Sae wondered if he and Makoto ever crossed paths, but she put that thought out of her head and left with him, waiting as he locked the door once they were outside. Yongen was still waking up, with the only sounds were those coming from the station at the end of the alley. “Shall we?” Akira asked.

Sae wanted to kiss him once more then, to cup his cheeks right there in the open and be perfectly brazen about it, and she got that far before remembering that it could cause just as many problems for him as her. Akira froze against her hands, waiting to see what she meant to do, but she only shook her head and raised one hand to ruffle his eternally-messy hair. “Hey, I work hard for that disheveled look,” he said, but nonetheless took a step closer to her.

“Do you…do you think I could see you again later?” Sae asked. “If everything turns out all right, as you seem to be so sure of.”

“Of course.”

Akira offered his hand as they walked and Sae took it, lacing their fingers together before they would inevitably have to part. She didn’t know what was about to happen, and the sting of worry was still there, but it had lost most of its edge with the knowledge that she didn’t have to face it alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Sae knew she didn’t have long. She knew that detectives were going to flood in again before she could collect all the evidence she needed, that there wasn’t anything she could do to prevent the slow, steady turn of the justice system’s wheels, grinding up everyone and everything in its path.

She still couldn’t find the words.

There were _some_ words she wanted to share, certainly, but everything she could think of turned to ash on her tongue with each new bruise and cut she picked out. His eyes had been blackened, his lower lip split, and his slender, dexterous hands had been terribly marred. For once, Sae didn’t want to speculate on what he looked like under his school uniform. She bit back tears and shuddered through a breath.

“I didn’t expect it’d be you.”

Akira was silent. Wounded as he was, he still managed an apologetic look from across the table, searching out her forgiveness like a beaten dog. Sae wanted to meet his gaze, but she was wounded too, in her own way. Her attention fell on the empty needles littering the floor, throwing pinpricks of light from the metal points, and suddenly she snapped back to Akira, to the way his eyes looked glazed over when he should have been focused even more sharply than her. “Oh, those bastards,” she muttered. “Can you hear me all right, Kurusu? You’ve been through a lot tonight.”

“It sounds so cold, when you call me that…”

“I’m not sure what you were expecting, given the circumstances.”

He was right, though. His family name sounded strange in her mouth, almost foreign. Sae pinched the bridge of her nose. It didn’t matter what façade she tried to put up, this wasn’t going to be a normal interrogation. It couldn’t be. “Akira.”

Whatever was left of his focus landed on her. “I’m sorry.”

“Just…please try to listen now. I need the truth. All of it. We don’t have much time, and whatever happens once they throw me out of here is beyond my control.”

“The truth,” Akira repeated, slowly. He sounded so out of it, far-off, swimming through the haze of his own thoughts to try and comprehend what she was saying. It almost seemed wrong to be angry with him; he clearly wasn’t in his right mind, and making her ire too plain would cause him to wall off. She couldn’t let that happen, not when their time was short and his life hung in the balance. Akira held his head in one hand and closed his eyes. “The truth is going to need some suspension of disbelief on your part, Prosecutor. Where should I start?”

“At the beginning. Kamoshida, Madarame, the whole thing. That stuff they pumped you full of should have had less of an effect on your long-term memories, so more recent events should be easier to recall once you’ve caught up in your head.” Sae glanced up at the camera, made sure it was disconnected, and then offered her hand, palm upturned. Akira mirrored her movements by reflex, but with the red and purple blotches on his knuckles, he only let his hand rest in hers. “Please, hurry. With as much detail as you can remember.”

Akira nodded. “I got into Tokyo on the ninth, in April…”

 _Some_ suspension of disbelief was a serious understatement, Sae thought as she listened and hurriedly jotted down notes with her free hand. Castles and solid shadows, treasures made manifest with calling cards, an enormous labyrinth overlaying the entire subway system…but it made some kind of sense, if only in loosest terms. The whole time, he pointedly avoided naming any of the other Phantom Thieves apart from his cat—Sae found herself believing that part without thinking too much about it. She tried to press him for the names of his accomplices, but he only moved on with his recollection. Whether it was the effects of the drugs or simple omission on his part, she couldn’t say. Rather than search for the missing pieces right away, she let him go on in the hopes that they would fall into place sooner or later.

They didn’t, to her alternate dismay and relief. Sae had a shortlist of potential suspects in her head, and a large part of her didn’t want to have her own sister confirmed as one of them. It hurt to even entertain the possibility, in truth. Not because of the deception it entailed, but because the sheer negligence required on her part for it to be possible was staggering. Some guardian she had been.

By the time his story had caught up with the present, Akira was mostly cogent again, no longer slurring his words and putting pressure on his shoulder to lessen some of the pain there. “So after you defeated the—the _me_ there, then what? You stole my treasure like the others?” Sae asked. “What was it?”

“I’m not sure, I didn’t have to steal it,” Akira said. Sae raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes the cognitives come around on their own without us tearing out their desires, if what they want is good to begin with. And you want justice, don’t you? That’s what’s buried under your need to win. We didn’t need to change that, so we never stole your heart. See…I told you it would be all right.”

She drew her hand back with a frown, and Akira slumped in his seat. “Sae—”

“Don’t. Don’t pull that into this. We don’t have enough time to say what we need to say.”

“I know. Do you have my phone?” Akira asked, his voice finally taking on an urgent tone. Sae took it out of her jacket pocket, and he sighed in relief. “We must be out of time by now. I don’t have any right to ask you to trust me, not now. I know that. But if you believe anything I’ve told you, then please show that to Akechi. And answer it when it rings.”

“Akechi? What’s he got to do with this?”

“You want names, don’t you? And all the details I’ve left out? Do that for me, and I’ll tell you everything you want.”

She turned his phone over in her hand a few times, looking at her blackened reflection in the screen, and saw nothing like she had the night before, that _thing_ that wore her face—her cognitive, as Akira called it. For the moment, Sae decided he had earned what was left of her trust. She could upbraid him for betraying the rest of it when he wasn’t one big bruise.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. Finding Akechi where he very definitely shouldn’t have been, listening to the tone-shifted voice on Akira’s phone, smuggling him out of the station while every guard and officer along their path seemed to get called away in a cascade—Sae barely had time to think about what she was doing until they were in the car park, when the reception on his phone failed and she had to decide what to do next by herself. She popped the trunk on her sedan, but Akira hesitated.

“I know it’s not going to be comfortable, but I have to pass a guard booth on the way out, so you’ll just have to bear with it until I can get you back to my apartment building,” Sae said.

“It’s not that, I—I can’t get my leg up high enough, I need your help.”

A pang of sympathy shot through her, quickly replaced by guilt as she boosted him up and laid him on the side that seemed less damaged. If she hadn’t been so obsessed with catching the Phantom Thieves, he might not have been caught, and, and…Sae shook her head clear and made sure his fingers were out of the way before closing the trunk. There wasn’t any use in letting her thoughts go down that road. All she could do was more forward with her current situation.

Every intersection between the station and her home was jammed, and the only thing she could get on the radio was the same news bulletin, the vindictive and almost sneeringly condescending announcement about the capture of the leader of the Phantom Thieves. She shut it off while stuck in traffic and took out her phone instead, hoping against reason that she could get a hold of a doctor who would make a house call and keep the questions to a minimum. “Akira.”

“Yes?”

His reply was muffled by the seats between them, and Sae reached back to unlatch one and pull it down. “They found medical supplies when they processed you. You got them from a doctor or a nurse, right? You need to get looked at, all those injuries are more than I can treat with a first aid kit.”

“In my phone…Takemi. Say it’s for her guinea pig.”

If nothing else, at least he was resourceful. Sae took out his phone and started scrolling through the contacts. “Hey, Sae—I don’t know if I can say it enough, but I’m sorry.”

The earnestness in his voice made her heart flutter, but a few kind words weren’t going to undo all that deception. “Save your energy, we’re about halfway there. And don’t fall asleep, you might be concussed.”

“Will you talk to me, then?”

She sighed. “It’s my turn to do the talking, is it? All right…”

⁂

Sae wasn’t going to admit to the sting of jealousy she felt at watching Doctor Takemi poke and prod her boyfriend everywhere she could, but it lingered there, mixed in among the worry. She fiddled with her phone to try and distract herself, then started when it chirped.

_Mako-chan [22:18]: Would it be all right if I stayed at my friend Takamaki’s place tonight? I’m sure you’re still busy with work, so I wanted to make sure I was out of your way._

The small window of doubt that had allowed Sae to place her sister outside the realm of suspicion grew smaller, until it had fallen shut. She had to be involved, she had to know that coming home now would raise too many questions, or at least appear to. Not that Sae wasn’t grateful for the space, but if what had happened to Akira was in store for his accomplices…no. She wouldn’t let that happen to Makoto.

_Sae [22:20]: Sure. Make sure to thank her parents for letting you stay over._

With that, she put her phone aside and watched the rest of the examination. Takemi was shining a small flashlight into Akira’s eyes, then had him follow it with his gaze as she moved it around. “What’s the date?” she asked.

“The twentieth of November.” He sounded so fragile.

“Your age? Do you remember where you live?”

“Sixteen. Leblanc, in Yongen.”

Takemi put on a pair of gloves and pressed a stethoscope to his bare chest. “Well, I don’t think you have a concussion. I can’t be sure without an X-ray, but I’m not feeling any breaks, either. You were only roughed up, whatever comfort that might be. Deep breaths, please.”

Sae shrugged off her jacket and hung it up to conceal her relief. Once Takemi was satisfied with his ability to breathe, she started disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. They were extensive—his right shoulder, particularly, was more bruise than not, and needed an anesthetic patch among the bandages. “Don’t overtask your arm,” Takemi said sternly as she dabbed a bit of rubbing alcohol along a cut on his cheek. “And don’t try running. They injected the sodium thiopental into your thighs, so the muscles in your legs are still too relaxed for anything more than a brisk walk. Come by the clinic when you can and I’ll make sure it’s out of your system. Get some rest until then.”

Takemi helped him put on the clean clothes Sae had provided, then started packing up her bag. Sae hurried over to get the door for her. “Thank you for coming all this way so late at night,” she said, and reached back for her wallet. “What do I owe you?”

“For what? I was never here, Niijima- _san_.”

She slipped away, and Sae closed the door once she saw Takemi get on the elevator. At the edge of her vision, she could see Akira flexing his hands to get a sense of how much the bandages there restricted his movement. It was just them left, then. Them, and the disquieting cloud hanging in the space between them. Sae didn’t want to have this conversation now, not after running him ragged in interrogation and badly needing sleep herself, but there was little use in putting it off.

“Makoto,” Sae said as she went and took a seat on the couch by Akira. “She’s mixed up in this, isn’t she?”

Akira nodded, staring at the floor. “She’s the reason we took down Kaneshiro. And how we found out you had a Palace.”

“Look at me, please.”

He did, but Sae suddenly found everything she wanted to say was lodged in her throat and refused to come out. Akira didn’t try to preempt her and defend himself, but only waited for her to pour out her anger on him. He didn’t try to play up his injuries or avoid it, placing himself in her crosshairs instead.

Only, when Sae reached down, there wasn’t any anger for him. That had turned wholly onto the cops who had left him in such a sorry state. She wasn’t even sure she had it in her to be angry at him, not after he had spent so much time and effort getting to know her when everyone else was ready to write her off as a cold-hearted bitch. Her lips even still tingled from where he had kissed her the night before. That only made the sadness and sting of betrayal more acute, though.

“You lied to me,” Sae said.

“Yes.”

Something burned around her eyes. “You—you said everything was going to be all right. You looked me in the eye and said it was going to be fine. All this time you were right under my nose, lying to me with that goofy smile. And now you’ve made me an accomplice. Was all this to…to use me?”

“No, never. Never. If nothing else, you have to believe that I never used you, and that my feelings were genuine.” Akira reached for her hand, but thought better of it and drew his back. He sighed, and Sae hated how small he sounded, how diminished. She bit down on her tongue to keep from crying. “I’m not going to make excuses or try to justify myself, you deserve better than that. We were working at cross-purposes. You were trying to help people the best way you knew how, like I was. It was never my intention to put this one you if I could help it. And I tried, Sae—Makoto and I nearly tore the Metaverse apart looking for someone else to focus on. Someone else who could call off the investigation without having it lead back to you. Because if it came down to it…I wasn’t sure I could fight your cognitive. Not after what happened to Okumura.”

He paused to catch his breath, and Sae couldn’t stop her tears from falling. They rolled silently down her face while the emotion overwhelmed her at seeing him lay himself bare.

“I lied to you, I’ll own that. It doesn’t matter why, I betrayed your trust in me and hurt you. Some things just can’t be forgiven, I think I’m in a better position to know that than most people. All you have to do is say so, and…I’ll leave. You’ll never have to see me again. You can find someone you can put your trust in.”

That struck her as much as any slap in the face. He was ready to throw himself aside for her sake after wounding her, so unwilling was he to cause her another shred of pain. Whatever glimmer of hope shone behind his glasses faded at her silence, and Akira got to his feet. “I’ll get myself back to Leblanc, don’t worry. And I’m sorry I pulled you into all of this, Sae. For whatever that’s worth.”

A pang of fear struck her as Akira moved past her to get to the door, so sharp and so deep that she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Her hands shook in her lap. He had put a painful score across her heart, but the thought of him slipping out of her life to avoid causing her more anguish, of not having him there to help heal it, hurt even more deeply. She all but jumped to her feet and went around her couch as Akira turned back at the noise. “Sae—?”

“You can’t make that decision,” she said, choking out her words while she blinked away the rest of the tears. “You can’t decide something is unforgivable, not when I’m the one who has to do the forgiving. So don’t walk out on this, all right?”

Sae closed the distance between them in a few steps and took Akira’s hands in her own. Even with the bandages, he managed to thread their fingers together. “I don’t want you to leave. Not now, not ever…because I love you. Because we have to be there to fix things when we hurt each other. You said you didn’t have to steal my heart, right? There wasn’t any need. You already have it, Akira.”

There were tears in his eyes as well as he kissed her, as they bridged the fissure between them. He let go of her hands to wrap his arms around her, tightly, protectively, and Sae melted into him. No, they could weather this. She didn’t know how, but there was no doubt in her mind that they could.

When they broke apart for air, Sae pressed one hand to the back of his head and held him against her, unwilling to let him go for even a second. “I love you, too,” Akira said with a squeeze around her waist. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your forgiveness.”

“Shh, you don’t have to earn anything. Not now.” Sae twirled a lock of his hair around her finger while her desires and her common sense fought for her next words. “Makoto’s not coming back for the night.”

“I figured as much.”

Her heart thrummed in her chest as she pondered the best way to go about this. Sae knew what she wanted and had a good guess of what Akira wanted too, but she also knew exactly how it would mean jumping clear over the line she’d drawn when they started seeing each other. To say nothing of the law, the law that had beaten her boyfriend down to his absolute lowest point.

She shook her head. For one night, she didn’t have to be a prosecutor. She could simply be Sae. “Do you…I mean, would you like to go to my room?”

She relaxed her grip somewhat, not letting him go but neither holding him so tight that he would feel he didn’t have a choice. Akira looked up at her, red-faced, and gave her one of his inscrutable little smiles. “No points for subtlety,” he said, still holding firm around her waist. “I’m pretty banged up here, are you sure?”

“If you are. I’ve been terrified at the thought of losing you, and if there really is more going on here like you’ve said—well. We have the opportunity now. I thought it’d be silly not to at least offer.”

One of his hands played along the small of her back, and Sae shivered with nerves as something sparked within her. Akira picked himself up on his toes to lightly kiss her cheek. “Lead the way, then.”

He offered her his hand, and Sae led him back through her apartment, suddenly wishing she had taken the time to tidy up her room the last time she’d been in there. She didn’t bother with the lights as she led him inside and over to her bed, low and simple but wide enough to stretch out. Akira eased down at the edge before Sae swooped down and kissed him again, perched in his lap where she could feel how obviously eager he was. “Just let me take care of everything,” she whispered against his ear, and Akira stayed obediently still as Sae did away with his shirt and pants, tossing them aside and leaving his bandages on display. “Tell me if I put too much weight anywhere, or if anything starts to hurt, all right?”

Akira nodded. He gripped at her arms as she laid him down on the bed, then watched with rapture as she disrobed and looked through her nightstand. Sae was on him again quickly, curled up at his side while she tore the condom wrapper open and got it in place. There was a heavy silence in between the sounds of their breathing, and Sae tapped an unbruised patch of his chest as she swung one leg over him. “You’re still sure about this?” she asked.

His good hand brushed along her cheek and down to the ridge of her collarbone. “I think you’re the only thing I’m sure of anymore.”

“Flatterer,” Sae said with a smile, and eased onto him.

She was gentle—she had to be, all things considered—and found a pace with him they could both enjoy. Sae cradled Akira’s head in one hand while she kept her balance and kissed him, taking her time as she felt out the planes of his lips. His hands were warm wherever they roamed on her body, between her shoulder blades, her hips, her thighs…Sae whimpered into his mouth as he caressed her, no doubt committing the feel of her to memory while she did the same with him. The heady spikes of arousal that wracked her whenever he rolled his hips in counter to hers weren’t going to let her last long, and Sae almost gripped too hard at his shoulder as she came undone, a long moan cracking out of her throat as she deepened their kiss. She could feel Akira reacting underneath her as well, until he half-tapped, half-clawed at her back. “Sae…”

“You’re close?”

He could only nod weakly, and Sae quickened their rhythm, kissing at the crook of his neck until his whole body twitched under her and his breath escaped in short, frantic gasps. The little aftershocks in his hips made Sae break into a grin, and she ran two fingers over Akira’s lips once he started to come back down. “Breathe,” she said, and took a moment to follow her own advice. “Just breathe. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Akira was lying on his good side when she returned from the bathroom, watching her slip back into bed with half-lidded eyes. Sae shuffled over to him in the middle of the bed and held him against her, resting one hand on his back to feel his heartbeat. “You’ll never get to sleep if you’re this worked up,” she said, moving her fingers in slow circles. “I thought guys were supposed to calm down afterward, anyway.”

“Maybe I don’t want to sleep yet.” Akira pressed a slow, lazy kiss to the hollow of Sae’s throat. “Maybe I want to stay like this, with you, for as long as I can.”

“Well, I don’t want your doctor to come back and read me the riot act because I kept you from recuperating, so you’ll have to get some rest. Close your eyes.”

He listened to her, and soon his heartbeat began to slow down to a normal pace. Sae eased onto her back, and Akira followed along, until his cheek was resting flat beneath her collarbone. The weight of him wasn’t unfamiliar or unpleasant, Sae found, but a reassuring pressure, like the safety of a blanket on a cold night. She stroked his hair. “I’ll protect you,” she said quietly, and his hand tightened on her arm. “I don’t care from who or what. I’ll keep you safe.”

“I always thought I’d be the one saying something like that,” Akira mumbled as he curled tightly against her. “It’s okay, though. Sounds fine when you say it. But once I’m not a big walking bruise, I’m going to protect you too, all right?”

Sae kissed the top of his head. “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading! If you liked this, you may be interested in some of my other _Persona_ work:
> 
> [A Portrait of the Shogi Player as a Young Woman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805870) – Yusuke and Hifumi’s Valentine’s date.
> 
> [Empress’s Justice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15770388) – Haru goes back and finds a fatally wounded Akechi in Shido’s palace.
> 
> [High Priestess, pǝʇɹǝʌuI](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16708519/chapters/39187396) – Genderswapped (sort of) High Priestess confidant, featuring my rabid little honey badger of a female protagonist, Akane
> 
> [I Guess This Sort of Thing Really Does Happen…](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855355) – Sae stashes Joker at Kawakami’s place following the interrogation.
> 
> [Kintsukuroi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14760477/chapters/34131807) – Some scenes from a setting where Sae and Yusuke are an item.
> 
> [Our Last Private Moments](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16092479) (Persona 3) – Theo and his guest's last date.
> 
> [Sense Memory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16536104) – Yusuke, whose world comes to him in impressionistic bursts and flashes, wonders if he's good enough at all to be part of the Phantom Thieves. Shukita.
> 
> [Singles’ Retreat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16556390) – Rather than tag along with any of their friends in relationships, Haru rents out a ryokan for herself, Ryuji and Yusuke for a week. What ever shall they do to keep themselves busy? (Yusuke/Haru/Ryuji, incredibly NSFW)
> 
> [Temperance, pǝʇɹǝʌuI](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15355578/chapters/35631108) – Genderswapped Temperance confidant, featuring a romantic bent and my rabid little honey badger of a female protagonist, Akane.
> 
> [Weekends in Shibuya](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697408) – A little future Sae/Joker piece I did for a friend when they were sick.


End file.
